


Pearl

by Trobadora



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode: s01e13 The Parting of the Ways, Episode: s03e11 Utopia, Gen, Time Lord senses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-31
Updated: 2007-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:44:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It is thought that natural pearls form under a set of accidental conditions when a microscopic intruder or parasite enters a bivalve mollusk, and settles inside the shell. [...] As a response to an irritant inside its shell the mollusk creates a pearl as a defense mechanism." (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl">Wikipedia</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pearl

"I bring life."

And - _nonono, not again, not again!_ \- just like before, the world changes.

It feels exactly like the change before, the one that ended everything - he can feel the universe shift and twist and turn, and resettle. The Time Lords, erased from history. Gallifrey, written out – ripped out of time, the universe struggling to knit closed a gaping wound in its very fabric, leaving rifts and tears in space-time all over the place, leaving scars when they closed. If they closed.

And now, torn open again – a fresh wound, this time, and a parasite forced right into it, the universe forced to accommodate it.

Jack, added.

He can feel it, just as he felt it happen then. The universe _twists_ \- shifting, turning, wrapping itself around the new Fact like a mollusk around an intruder it cannot eject, mother-of-pearl layering around a parasite.

It turns his stomach.

It breaks his heart.

**

He can see all of time and existence. He can feel the earth turn and spin through space, the solar system's slow rotation with its spiral arm, the galaxy's own drift. He can see every potential future and past and parallel level of existence. Everything that was and is and might be, it's right there in the part of him that is not of this or any universe. Everything - except this one man. Jack is a fact, he is the solid, unmoving centre the earth and the solar system and the galaxy are spinning around, he is the thread of fixed and definite Truth running through time. Jack's past and his present and his future - it's all There. There is no beginning and no end, no alternatives - he is and will always be, and has always been.

He's an abomination.

He's the Time War, personified: The universe rewritten. History unraveled, a living paradox, the whole of existence shifted to accommodate him. The past erased, rewritten. Things that were not, suddenly a fact. Suddenly everywhere and everywhen. Everything's changed, and the Doctor can feel it.

**

It's the year 100 trillion, the end of the universe – the only thing that will be able to end Jack, now. It's the last place the Doctor ever expected to be. It's where he finally, finally has to look at Jack, at the horror he's been running from. The end of everything is when he can no longer avert his eyes, no longer avoid the Fact.

He's looking into the face of Truth, and it's painful.

He's looking into the face of his friend – human, still so human, still so very much alive and _living_ \- hard to think of him as something eternal and unchanging, even when he can feel it in his gut.

It's only when he tells Jack what happened to him on the Game Station, at the whim of a human child with the time vortex running through her veins, that he realises: Jack is the opposite of the Time War. Not something deleted but something added. Not death, but life. The final act of the Time War, contradicting itself: giving life. As he looks at the horror before him, at Jack, alive in the deadliest radiation, in the orange light he sees: Jack's future. A Fact, but full of life, and hope, and humanity, palpable and beautiful, right there at the core of the eternal. Now that he's finally looking, he cannot look away.

This is it: the legacy of the Time Lords, when all else will be gone. This is what will remain of them, of their powers, their achievements, their hubris and their pain when the last of them will have died.

He cannot think of a more fitting legacy. He only wishes Jack were not the one burdened with it.


End file.
